Saturday, May 24, 2008

Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #128

[Guest-blogger Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Chris Claremont's X-Men run. For more in this series, see the toolbar on the right.]

“The Action of the Tiger”

The previous issue was the middle act of the Mutant X arc, deliberately slackening the tension and devoting the bulk of its narrative to the X-Men licking their wounds after their disastrous first encounter with Proteus. Here, the focus tightens to laser-beam intensity, and after a brief re-cap for latecomers (“Every issue is somebody’s first,” went the philosophy of Marvel’s then-Editor in Chief Jim Shooter), readers are treated to a dozen action-packed pages of the X-Men vs. Proteus.

As is often the case with these climactic battle scenes in the Claremont/Byrne run, Claremont’s writing is the secondary attraction. It is Byrne and Terry Austin who really shine here, producing panel after panel of viscerally exciting images: Wolverine slicing right through Proteus’ stomach; Cyclops and Havok blasting Proteus simultaneously from opposite sides; the fantastic three-panel Colossus transformation; etc.

Still, Claremont sneaks in a few good character bits amid the action. Cyclops is once again the perfect strategist/tactician, his mind always on the battle, and there’s a nice contrast in the way he and Wolverine react to seeing Proteus strike down Jean. Wolverine flies into a rage; Cyclops just keeps attacking the villain. And when Wolverine gives Cyclops grief about it – “Jean’s zapped bad, Cyke, and you ain’t even battin’ an eyelash” – Havok gets angry about it (“Short-stuff, you are so off-base about my brother, it’s pathetic”), but Cyclops isn’t the least bit bothered. Both Scott’s dialogue and inner monologue continue to be only about the fight, which is great characterization.

Colossus’ comforting of Moira on the final page is also rather touching, I think. It’s a nice irony that Peter – the most peace-loving of the team, and also the one who was so recently doubting whether he was pulling his weight – is the one who delivers the killing stroke. Congratulated by Wolverine on the job well done, Colossus replies with the gentle reproach, “Hush now. Let Moira grieve in peace,” which is a lovely example of the character’s quiet courage (he just told Wolverine to shut up) and compassion.

All in all, the perfect conclusion to a great action movie in comic book form. (The Proteus arc would have been a marvelous story for X-Men 3 -- certainly incalculably better than the hackwork that Brett Ratner delivered.)

And from here, it only gets better. Claremont and Byrne are going from strength to strength now.

-- The big splash of all the X-Men heading for battle, with the ones who can fly carrying the ones who can't... and Phoenix carrying five at once!

-- the steady decay of Proteus' body from page to page, until he's finally an eyeless, animated corpse. Bonus: how he collapses into a pile of dust, after Colossus tosses him into a wall.

-- Proteus going toe-to-toe with Phoenix.

-- the dusty remnant of Proteus blowing away in the wind.

One other thing: this was one of the first issues to be firmly grounded in a real geographic location not connected to the authors. Issue #97 kicked off in New York, but in the Marvel Universe that hardly counts. The trip to Japan was to a fictional city, "the port of Agarashima" -- though IMS afterwards all X-stuff in Japan was moved to Tokyo. The Alpha Flight issues were in Calgary, but that was Byrne's home town (and he filled those issues with his friends and neighbors).

But now we're in Edinburgh, a town where -- in the Marvel Universe -- nothing had ever ever happened before. This was new and different.

It was also the first real excursion of the X-Men into globetrotting. Later issues would see them everywhere from Mississippi to Paris to Australia, but this is where it began.

IMS (and it may not), either Claremont or Byrne asked Marvel for a trip to Scotland, and didn't get it -- so they had to use visual references from books and such. But within a few more months, the X-books were big enough that Marvel sent both creators on a European tour... ostensibly to go to cons in Europe, but really as a perk, and because they wanted it. Subsequent X-trips tended to track Claremont's own travels (though not always).

Anyway, great issue. Note that this is the last straightforward everybody-versus-a-totally-evil-villain fight the X-Men would have for a long while... at least until issue 150, and maybe longer (since Magneto wasn't a complete villain by then).

Scott,I've decided I probably won't read the Millar Ultimate X-Men trades until after I've finished writing this series. (An event that is not as far off as it may seem.) It'll be a fun way to cap this off, to see how Millar has consolidated the classics.

Doug,Sorry I didn't have a chance to reply to your comments on 127. You make a strong case for the problems with the Wolverine/Cyclops resolution, but ... what can I say, it just works for me. It strikes me as a strong, decisive way to end it. And I like that it breaks up the big "versus Proteus" sequences a bit. It strikes me as a nice way to keep things from becoming too one-note.

Yeah, this is a fantastic all-out action one. I read it over and over as a kid. Just couldn't get enough of it.

Thanks for pointing out the exotic-ness of the locale, too. Interesting about the attempted trip to Scotland ... I do remember reading an interview with Shooter where he talked about how Claremont started wanting to go on trips and was kind of floored that Marvel found a way to make that happen.

Entire-team-versus-single-bad-guy: There is issue 149, where the team fights Garrokk, but that one is kind of ... eh. I think issue 150 counts, though, since the major deepening of Magneto comes *after* the big fight ...

Is issue 150 the one where Kitty Pryde is nearly killed and this causes Magneto to halt his assault?

If so, I remember that issue, it was also my basis for a major problem I always had witht the first X-men movie... when he is using Rogue to power his 'mutant making machine' (another problem I had with th plot) Wolverine ask him why he doesn't power himself. The Magneto I had to come to love in the comics would have been powering it himself and he would have NEVER sacrificed an innocent young Mutant (against their will) for his own plans.

About Me

Geoff Klock has a big degree from a fancy-pants university. He wrote some books on superheroes and poetry like 10 years ago. Also essays on film, and TV and teaching. You have Google, right? He spoke at the Met once, and inspired a name of a villain in Matt Fraction's Casanova, which is a really good comic book. He made a crazy mash up of like 200 movie and TV clips quoting Hamlet. Geoff teaches mostly writing, but also Old Brit Lit and Film, at BMCC. He rides a bicycle to get there. He is very good at Facebook?

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Regular Guest Bloggers

Jason Powell has taken on the yeoman's job of doing an issue by issue analysis of Chris Claremont's 17 year Uncanny X-Men run in an effort to make me feel bad for saying Morrison invented all kinds of things he did not in his New X-Men run, and for spelling Claremont "Clairmont" in my superhero book.

Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person

Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.

Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.